User centric app design

Ground Control Station

Geodrones Australia

Australian Capital Territory

A Ground Control Station (GCS) is essentially a "virtual cockpit" that lets pilots control a UAV during flight.

When working on a quadcopter project, we quickly realized that the available GCS options didn’t meet the specific needs of our pilots. It became clear that we needed to create something in-house—a custom app designed around the way our pilots work.

We started with QGroundControl because it runs on multiple platforms and integrates smoothly with ArduPilot. Using Qt Creator (IDE), I built a custom GCS that connects to a UXV controller and works directly with the technology suite we use. The development process involved close collaboration with our pilots to ensure the app was practical, intuitive, and suited to real-world operations.

The result was a GCS that feels like it’s made for our pilots—not just another off-the-shelf solution.

What I Used:

Languages: C++, Python, QML, JavaScript

Tools: Qt Creator, Figma (for design), GitHub

What I Learned:

  1. How to integrate SDKs to create a GUI that works on multiple platforms

  2. How to pass data structures between QML and C++ effectively. Object Oriented Programming.

  3. How to package apps (.apk files) for installation on different devices

  4. How to design a user interface that makes UAV operations easier

This project was a great opportunity to build something meaningful by listening to what users really needed and delivering a solution that worked for them, while expanding my mechatronics skills with a hand-on approach.